No sooner has the summer’s World Cup party finished – a party that England hung around at briefly before heading home early – than football returns. The traditional curtain raiser to the English season, the Community Shield, saw Premier League champions Manchester City take on FA Cup winners Arsenal, and it was the London side who finished happier after goals from Santi Cazorla, Aaron Ramsey and Olivier Giroud secured a 3-0 win. City coach Manuel Pellegrini no doubt hoped his team, though missing its key players, would have provided a stiffer test than such a blancmange of a performance, given the depth of the squad, owing to the depth of the pockets of the club’s owners. Meanwhile, Arsenal’s finances will be boosted if they can overcome Turkey’s Besiktas for a place in the Champions League.

Two Test wins on the bounce

You wait 10 matches for a Test victory and then two come along at once. England secured back-to-back Test victories against India, this time by an innings and 54 runs at Old Trafford, Manchester, to take a 2-1 lead in the five-match series. India’s problems began in the first innings when only captain MS Dhoni’s battling 71 saved his team from complete collapse on the way to a modest 152. Chasing England’s first-innings total of 367, India surrendered their final nine wickets in one session to finish on 161. A disappointing performance from the tourists, but an England performance not to be sniffed at, at least not by man of the match Chris Broad, whose fractured nose saw him accept the accolade from a hospital bed after he was struck in the face by a bouncer from Varun Aaron. The fifth Test begins at the Oval, London, on Friday.

Schooled by big sister Venus

Serena Williams said that “big sister taught little sister a lesson” after losing 6-7, 6-2, 6-3 to Venus Williams in the semi-finals of the Rogers Cup in Montreal. Serena continued the poor form that has seen the world No 1 and 17-time major winner fail to progress past the quarter-final of a grand slam this year – a fault she will try to put right at the US Open at Flushing Meadows later this month. One of the biggest threats to her quest will come from Poland’s Agnieszka Radwanska, who beat Venus Williams 6-4, 6-2 in the final in Montreal.

Lucky 13 for England

England secured their place in the semi-final of the Women’s Rugby World Cup after a tense 13-13 draw with Canada in Marcoussis, France, to join Ireland, Australia and the hosts in the penultimate round of the competition. England have been the beaten finalists on the past three occasions but find themselves favourites after reigning champions New Zealand were eliminated.